JUNE 2014 NEWSLETTER
June has been a month of several high and low moments for the Fundación Mariposas Amarillas, but luckily it has ended extremely positively. With the help of Amanda Sharp, a wonderful volunteer who's returned to the United States this month, we may have secured enough international funding to start several new development projects. She's found a particularly generous pair of Dutch donors, Sylvester and Wessel, with their company Con Amore in Holland. They met Amanda at our weekly quiz night at La Brisa Loca by chance and became inspired by our cause. The two are interested in helping us monetarily, by possibly providing us funding for the hiring of a teacher, having a living stipend introduced for one long term volunteer, covering the costs of hosting community classes twice a week and the renting of an office for the usage of all involved in our organization. If this becomes a reality we really couldn't ask for better news, aside from miraculously mending the education and health gaps we're helping to alleviate in the community of Fundadores in a faster manner. Still, this is a huge step towards meeting those goals. Stay tuned for further updates on this exciting possible partnership!
Unfortunately, such good news naturally comes with some negative. During the end of May and in early June, our local coordinator Helga had her mother pass away after a long struggle with illness. It is with great regret we share our condolences and wish her the best at this trying time. Amparo, the foundation's local ambassador and community leader, also had family afflicted with illness. Her son Ricardo, a student of the school, who actually lives on the site, was hospitalized for several days. We are happy to say he is now recovering and both have returned to their home in our school facility. This is the end of the grim news, and from it we have grown. From situations like these, along with the challenges introduced by new volunteer visas, we have come to realize the importance of having a formal teacher placed in the school, so the children can receive their education year round, regardless of external personal and political circumstances. Creating the ability for this to happen is our top priority.
Oscar Cortes, our director, has returned to Colombia from Colorado, where he has been living with his wife and their new baby. He will be with us until August 28. Since arriving he has made two trips to the Ministry of Education to pursue turning our facility into a private school. This needs to happen so we can acquire a professional teacher, while maintaining our ability to have international funding and foreign volunteers. In addition, becoming a private institution means the school will be more widely recognized in the community of Fundadores, as the requirements to become a school are relatively strict. Although Oscar has taken our volunteer coordinator Helga’s job, including the coordinators salary while here, she is now giving her time and energy freely into helping him make this goal happen.
With 25 different required areas we need to meet, including completing a lot of paperwork, we think this process will take several months. Aside from these trips, Oscar has visited the Ministry of Immigration to try to sort out or soften issues we're having with the volunteer visa. Many interested individuals have been inhibited from volunteering their time because of this cost. In turn our organization has suffered.
These occasions have revealed, yet again, some positive news and more negative. The positive being that there is a second type of visa, which is free, that may apply to volunteers staying only short stints of time and working on a particular project, such as doing research in the area for something unaffiliated, or performing a short art or culturally specific task such a teaching a sport or visiting to take photos. It's called the PIP-6. The distinction between these roles and those of actual volunteers is that these persons would not work intimately with the organization or within the school. In order to apply for the PIP-6, the applicant must be outside of the country as Colombian airport immigration deals with these documents. There are more details on our website addressing this visa.
The downside to these conversations was the need for the further refining of start and stop dates for actual volunteers by Migracion Colombia. Now a report must be sent following the arrival and departure of those working in Santa Marta to ensure while in Colombia volunteers are solely volunteering and not misusing their visas. Please contact our director and coordinators for more details regarding these new rules as they come into effect. Be sure to communicate your plans clearly with Oscar and other coordinators, and it may be possible for travel plans to be accommodated. As to the current situation in our school, though we had fewer classes than usual due to the extraneous circumstances mentioned, many Monday holidays and a bus strike that lasted several days, the children continue to learn enthusiastically.
We have continued with our Happy Face Chart, where the children are motivated to have good behaviour and be helpful with the reward of a sticker at the end of each class. This ultimately results in a small reward after an accumulation of ten points. It has been highly successful program. One unexpected effect of its installment has been conversations about what's happening in school occurring between parents and their children. We've seen when a child does not receive their sticker, they get upset and complain to their parent about this injustice, creating discussions outside of the classroom about what type of behaviour is appropriate. It’s a great achievement. It's also provided proof about how much the children care about their classes in the community.
With Oscar now conducting classroom education for grades 1 and 2, Amparo, has been teaching preschool with volunteers Magdalena from El Salvador, Faustine from France, and Erin, a local Taganga diving instructor originally from Scotland. They've focused on mathematics, language, grammar and reading apprehension, intermingled with sports, including a workout provided by a local, Yelenis. Of his grades Oscar said, "The children are well. I'm observing and processing everything about them within the school. It is very good when they express their emotions or ask things, because I find it's the most productive way to help. I always understand that Colombian children are very cheerful, friendly and honest about things they say. I haven't had any negative observations." As is appropriate for children this age he's also instilled some classroom fun and friendly rivalry. They've played a trivia version of Copa America, with the 12 teams being made up of 12 kids. At the end of class they receive information from the competition, from football, and from the teams and countries participating, including languages and geography in Latin and South America. When the Copa América finishes the child selected at random to be associated with the winning nation will get a gift. The winner will be announced in the next monthly update.
Oscar has replenished supplies such as cooking pots, and furniture such as book shelves and
instrument cases. He's also been updating the school facility, adding barriers to windows and open areas of the roof to keep out thieves and installing screens to protect the children from the sun. A fridge has been purchased for the kitchen, a water cooler donated from local doctor, Sandra Cobas installed and cement is now encasing the entire facility, including the newly renovated small flower garden outside the front door. All of these changes were made possible by our fundraising campaign Hugs For Change and Oscar's Australian friend Natski Cuddieski.Donations from our quiz nights at La Brisa Loca with our fabulous
volunteer MC Bob Hart have also helped purchase food and school supplies for the students. This month we made 297,100 COP! It's a great event and always a lot of fun. Aside from helping run this event Sebastian, Vera and myself have been organizing the structure of the foundation, taking over website and related maintenance, trying to reinstate the health and education programs for adults in the community and researching the possibility of a sustainable social business for the families concerned. Mike, Ouzo's owner, has continued to donate food to the school, which is now prepared daily by Amparo and others into nutritious and diverse meals for the children. He has even offered to send more vegetables to the school in the future, for which we're so thankful.
I apologize for the length of this update, but as you can see a lot is happening within Fundación Mariposas Amarillas. Please send us warm wishes and help us say good bye to volunteers Sarah, Emma and Miriam while welcoming our newest volunteer Frances, a young friend of Oscar's from Colorado.
Until next month!
Abrazos, Kelsey
Note From the Director:
It is also important to acknowledge for the month of June the great progress we have been able to make on our school building thanks to the fundraising efforts of a wonderful project in Australia, which was created by a very inspiring individual. Nat created Hugs For Change, an effort to empower and spread love and kindness through hugs. Her objective is to hug 1 million people and collect a dollar from each one, giving $1 million in total to different charities! FMA is one of the projects she chose to support, and through the act of hugging people she raised enough funds to pay for the first half of construction of the kitchen for our school building (in addition to adequately provide food/snacks for our students, the presence of a kitchen is required to receive official status as a licensed school). Next, Hugs For Change sponsored a wonderful fundraising event, Cuddles For Colombia, to raise more funds to complete the kitchen project. This includes (but is not limited to) the kitchen structure, installation of electricity, the necessary plumbing infrastructure, and other general operating supplies for the school. It also made it possible for us to add security reinforcements to the building (cement on the walls and bars on the windows). Lastly, the donations have allowed us to begin to apply for formal registration as a public school. We are so grateful to Nat and the entire planning committee for all of their hard work, and of course to all of the generous donors from halfway around the globe!
Thank you!
Muchos abrazos
Oscar Cortes Pomeo, Founder & Director
